Minelab Safari/Quattro Forum

One of my hunting spots has a pond and petting zoo with a 30 foot ring of grass surrounding the entire area. This spot dates to the 1930's. I have never detected it with any determination because of the high profile grounds and number of people that are always here. Last week I got an early start and got one hour of detecting in before it opened up. I found at least 15 open plugs and almost left figuring it was hunted. I used a modified coin program on the Safari and found 60 coins in that hour. Whoever was detecting was a novice because I was finding coins their plugs. I was only digging numbers above 35 because of the sheer number of zincs present. I did not find any wheats or silver, but because of the age of the area, there had to be some to be found.

Fast forward to today. I arrived with about an hour to detect and decided to ignore the shallow signals and listen for deeper targets. I hunted with just half of the iron range disced out and used a "fast" setting. I found some 6 inch deep clad quarters before I got the deep signal I was hoping for. I was at the entrance sidewalk and I got weak 37-38 with the depth gauge almost pegged. Bingo, a wheat from 8 inches. Two feet further and a similar signal:two wheats in the same hole from 9 inches. My time was running out and I was getting a little sloppy with my scanning. I re-focused and still near the entrance I got a very scratchy, weak signal that would only get a number or tone every other swing. From 6 inches I pulled out a rusty nail. I rescanned and got a clearer 39. I dug three more inches of dirt out and saw silver. A pristine 52 Washington quarter. Now with only ten minutes left, I dug two more 8 inch old wheats.

I had to leave, but I have a big area to cover in the future. My lesson today was always hunt any spot like there might be some good deep coins to be found. There is so much surface clad here that you sort of program your head for these shallow coins. I have said many times that when you have to get dialed into what a deep coin sounds like. With any detector, you have to come to recognize what deep coins sound like at the extreme range of your detector.

I got up early this am and hit this spot again. I stayed at the entrance and used a wide open screen on the Safari. I was shocked at the multitude of clad coins that I missed. It was extremely hard to listen to this surface clad while creeping along trying for deeper coins. I guess I was not in the right frame of mind for this ultra slow hunting. I kept digging only 36 and up signals that looked and sounded deep. Finally after digging at least 20 clad dimes and quarters(36 to 38 numbers), I got a weak warble that would give a 38-39 number occasionally. From 10 inches comes a Franklin half dollar. I ran out of time and had to vacate the area. I have a feeling that there are many more silver coins at depth here.

I believe a smaller coil that gets good depth might be the ticket for this spot. I used to have a SEF 6x8 and 4x7 ecellerator coil for my other Minelabs, but don't know if these coils could reach the 8 plus inches of depth I need here. Any suggestions would be appreciated.